Review of Silent 400w Power Supply

SnowPunk98 writes "OCModShop has done a review on a SilenX 400w 14 dBA PSU "The power supply doesn't boast any flashy designs or cool colors however that is not the purpose of this power supply. Silence is what the main goal of the unit is and there are tons of features to help achieve that.""

Comments

My 400w power supply is silent, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Until I turn it on.

Advertising?

[Kent Recal]

There are dozens of "silent" PSUs around. Just bought myself one a couple weeks ago... What exactly makes this review of one a headline?

Re:Advertising?

[EulerX07]

In this era of stealth advertising, one must be getting a pretty good bonus at the end of the month for getting a product on the slashdot front page.

(Yes, I'm stealing links from some of my old posts)

Re:Advertising?

[Golias]

Yea, but I've never once bought a product based on a /. review.

Every time a front-page story about the iPod goes up, you get 150 posts about how much the iRiver is a better deal. Every Rio story has just as many posts trashing it in favor of the iPod.

As far as I can tell, a /. story gets you a 2-12 paragraph blurb followed by 300 posts bashing your product, your company, and anybody who buys your stuff. Not a very good way to advertize at all!

(I have, on the other hand, bought stuff I've seen on /. banner ads. My "#include " beer glasses from thinkgeek, for example.)

Re:Advertising?

[Basehart]

"My "#include " beer glasses from thinkgeek"

You, sir, are a true geek.

Your #include beer glass is almost as cool as my big chipped plastic mug with Apple printed on the side in the most horrible pink color ever seen.

Re:Advertising?

[AssClown2520]

I just read the link to the stealth advertising that you gave. I actually don't find this type of advertising objectionable. While it is slightly devious it is better than trying to con me into thinking that all women that drink Miller Lite beer have big boobs...

Re:Advertising?

[DarkVader]

But Apple only stopped making the 15" iMac last year...

And the original Macintosh never had an external power supply either. It used so little power that it was actually energy star compliant - without any sleep function at all.

What is silent?

[KingDaveRa]

Is 14dBA really silent? Should 0dBA be considered silent? I'm curious to know.

Re:What is silent?

[ErrorBase]

This could give you a clue.
14dBA is way below whisper ...

Re:What is silent?

[jeffkjo1]

Well.. 0dB would be ideal, but most people cannot hear sounds that low... especially geeks with big stereo systems.

This page has an excellent table of information on various dB listings.

According to it, human breathing at 3 feet is 10dB... can you hear people breating from 3 feet away? (I can't.)

Re:What is silent?

[Anonymous Coward]

A whisper? I have voices whispering to me all day long; it's pretty hard to ignore. "Get a rifle and climb up the water tower", or "Flick that lightswitch two more times", or "Get a load of the *** on her!", or "Time to reline your tinfoil hat". If my power supply were this annoying, I wouldn't get anything done around here at all...

Re:What is silent?

[mph]

Errr no, dB measure the log ratio of two intensities, the one you're interested in, and a reference. For dBA, the reference is supposed to be the threshold of human hearing. You can have sound with positive power, but quieter than the reference level, which would result in negative dBA.

0 dBA may be "perfectly silent" in the sense that you can't hear it by itself, but if you put two or more 0 dBA sources together, you will hear them. The 0 dBA sources are producing sound.

Re:What is silent?

[kels]

Wrong. Zero dB is just an arbitrary choice and a sound at 0 dB has nonzero amplitude. In air the reference pressure is normally 20 micropascals. The previous poster is correct, the decibel scale is relative, and negative infinity dB is truly silent.

Re:What is silent?

[Flavio]

Unfortunately most (all?) manufacturers of silent computer products lie about noise levels.

For example, the Silent Boost heatsink/fan from Thermaltake is advertised as being as loud as 21 dBA. However, closer inspection will tell you that it uses an 80cm Panaflo 2450 RPM fan, and Panasonic says the fan alone (without the heatsink, which will add to the noise due to additional turbulence) is 28 dBA loud.

The same goes for all sorts of fans and PSUs advertised as being silent. Manufacturers exaggerate their claims, and the one with the lowest number typically sells the loudest product.

Re:What is silent?

[Flavio]

Well, I won't argue about semantics, but reputable manufacturers like Panasonic make it quite clear how they measure noise. For example, here's what Panasonic has to say (source): "the noise data is measured at 1 meter from the intake side of the fan suspended in a semi-anechoic chamber (background noise 13 dBA maximum)".

Zalman, Thermaltake and others neglect to specify this, which is no surprise since their claims always clash with each other and with their suppliers'.

And there's also the subjective side of things, but that's a whole other issue. Two fans with the same noise emission levels aren't necessarily as pleasant, since their spectra may be completely different. Reducing RPMs will give you less overall noise, but crappier fans will always give you irritating bearing noise, for instance, even though they may be quiet on average.

Re:What is silent?

[Pieroxy]

can you hear people breating from 3 feet

Well, I can definitely hear my wife snoring 1 foot away. Does that count?

Re:What is silent?

[nathanh]

Errr no, the dB scale starts at 0, thre is no negative axis, hence no possibility of negative infinity. As such, 0dB is perfectly silent.

You are wrong. 0dB means a unity gain. In other words, the signal you are measuring is exactly the same intensity as the reference signal.

In audio, 0dBA (notice the A) means it's the same intensity as the smallest discernible noise to "standard" human ears. Basically it's pretty damn quiet.

You most certainly can have negative dB. It just means attenuation (ie, the signal you are measuring has less intensity than the reference signal). 0 gain (which would be truly silent) is the same as negative infinity dB.

Re:What is silent?

[karnal]

As opposed to those darn Jedi metrics?

Re:What is silent?

[littlecindylouwho]

Thanks. My monitor is now covered in Dr. Pepper.

Outstanding!!

[loserbert]

Now I'll be able to listen to my 5 case fans that sound like an Harrier hovering above my house! That stupid power supply fan was screwing everything up....

Re:Outstanding!!

[flewp]

I think you've hit on a new cool case mod.... using the fans to create a hover-case!

On a side note, I have never really been bothered by noise from my computers, except maybe the older ones when the fans start to rattle.

The soothing hum is actually kind of nice to my ears, and if I try and sleep in my room with none of my machines powered on, it becomes almost too quite. Guess I'm just used to it by now.

Re:Outstanding!!

[gnu-generation-one]

"Now I'll be able to listen to my 5 case fans that sound like an Harrier hovering above my house! That stupid power supply fan was screwing everything up...."

Question is, is it possible to get a non-crap graphics card which doesn't double as the sound system for your racing games? Looking at my case, it seems that the two fans I can replace (CPU and power supply) are fairly quiet, but the graphics card has a tiny little fan making a big noise. And worse, the heatsink has been epoxied onto the GPU by the manufacturer so I can't replace it with anything passive.

Take a look in kustompcs.co.uk for replacement graphics cards, and... yes, that's right, they're all renowned for the noise they make. Reviews of high-end graphics cards typically use phrases like "so long as you don't mind the noise", and the better the card, the worse the noise.

Is there anything good which can be passively cooled?

Re:Outstanding!!

[karnal]

One thing I've noticed with my slight tinnitus is that the TV annoys it more.

The high pitched whine has a lot to do with it. I can't wait until I get a projector or an LCD tv to get rid of the CRT whine... they can make monitors that don't whine much, but when it comes to 200-300$ television sets, they all have that whine.

Re:Outstanding!!

[ShadowBlasko]

This is going so offtopic, but I have never had a chance to discuss it on slashdot, so here goes anyway.

You mentioned the monitor whine, did you know that a large percentage of the populus can not hear that? Second question. Do you, by any chance, have ADD or AD/HD?

Here is why I ask:

All my life I have been able to hear the whine from television sets, and monitors. Even if I am in another room I can "feel/hear" it when someone turns on (or de-gausses) a monitor. I used to think that everyone else heard it too, and when I realized that they didn't, I quickly stopped talking about it. (didn't wanna be labelled a nutcase or anything)

Especially bad were the old "dumb terminal" CRT's that were starting to go bad. If there was one near me, it would drive me almost batty. I could hear it *all* the time. When I worked at a call center in the early 90's, I would walk around at night when I was on the late shift until I found the bad CRT and turn it off. Usually I could "triangulate?" the location by walking around the room once first.

About the same time I was (finally) diagnosed with AD/HD. About 2 years later, when I switched doctors, I was asked about things that distracted me when I was trying to concentrate. I mentioned the monitor/CRT whine, and the doctor was somewhat amused. "I hear that a lot from easily distracted people."

That got me thinking, so I brought it up at an ADHD group meeting a couple months later. Not suprising to me, almost everyone I asked at the meeting said that they could "hear" the TV's and monitors in other rooms, especially when they are first turned on, even if the volume is all the way down.

I told my doctor about it at my next appointment, and she dismissed it as coincidence. She did not seem to even believe that such a sense of "electronic or electromagnetic perception" even existed.

I had her blind test me by going in the waiting room and switching the TV on and off a specific number of times. I was correct on the number each time.

As far as I know, nothing ever came of it. I just let it go, because it seems to be damned hard to convince someone with a Phd that you might know something that they don't.

Personally I think that, if my theory is correct, (That this "perception" of Electromagnetic interference, or maybe it is just a "sound", is so common in people with ADD or AD/HD, That the increasing numbers of devices which generate those sounds could correlate with the increasing numbers of ADD and AD/HD cases) it could really be interesting to say the least.

Needless to say I have neither the expertise nor the resources to study this.

I apologize to the slashdot readers for taking up so much space, and their time, in my ramblings, I just needed to finally get that out of my system and tell someone when the opportunity came up.

And hey, if I get famous, you heard it here first.

Re:Outstanding!!

[ShadowBlasko]

Honestly, I have not had a hearing frequency test done in, wow... I guess its been 15 years.

(BTW, thanks everyone for not modding me into offtopic hell, if it makes any difference, todays my birthday, and getting to discuss this is one of the best presents I could have possibly received)

Something I did not point out in the above post, but should mention is this:

There are two distinctly different perceptions. There is the monitor/CRT whine, which seems more audible, and the second, which is a little bizzare.

The second is the "sensation" for lack of a better word, when a monitor or CRT is first turned on. (or when it is degaussed, which is what leads me to beleive it is some type of electromagnetic thing)

That "sensation" is somewhat harder to describe. It's very brief, like a 1/2 second "wave" for lack of a better word. It feels like static electricity. It "tingles" a bit. Like when you put your hand close to a (sorry to use this again in comparison, but it is the best I could think of) TV set that is very statically charged. But its not localized, just sort of "passes through" you, very quickly.

I can feel that someone turns on a monitor or TV set (to my best estimates) within about a 50 foot range of where I am. It does seem to depend on the type of CRT/Monitor though. With our TV set (fairly new zenith) it's barely perceptible, yet when someone fires up my old 21" rasterops monitor (dinosaur that it is) I can feel it upstairs.

I know it sounds totally bizzare, and honestly I would laugh at me too, but I've lived with it for all of my life and, as far as I know, I'm not crazy.

Re:Outstanding!!

[Big Nothing]

Offtopic but still...

No, you're not alone. As a matter of fact, I can usually hear if a TV set is turned on in another room, even if the door is shut, or even on another floor (yes, the TV is muted) due to the high-frequency tone it emits.

The noise is generated in all CRT's; TV set, computer monitor, CRT projector, osilloscope, etc and is called the "line frequency". The frequency of the tone is 15.734 kHz, wich is well within the human hearing range.

However, modern equipment generate a lot less - if any - of this noise. The generated sound really is a biproduct of the frequency used to generate the line scan of the electron sweep. I am unable to hear any line noise from my brand new computer monitor but I can hear some (but not a lot) from my old TV set. Some really old TV sets and PC monitors make so much noise that I am unable to stay in the same room as the monitor for any period of time without developing a brain tumor.

Also, many (most?) people over a certain age does in fact NOT hear this sound, due to reduced hearing. Although reduced hearing is in no way something to crave, I wouldnt mind being unable to hear this tone. It can be terribly annoying and distracting and can even cause headache. In fact, many people who have trouble with headaches after a day of office work should try upgrading their monitors. Even if they are unable to conciously HEAR the sound, the ear is still recieving the noise (and the noise melting their brains - or something).

There is, AFAIK, no relationship between ADHD or ADD and being able to hear the line noise. Whether or not you ARE able to hear it would solely depend on your hearing. Bare in mind that you can have certain part of the frequency range reduced or "enhanced" due to various factors. For example, frequent visit to discos and clubs, where loud music is played, is a sure-fire way to remove that line noise from your hearing (although the tinnitus you'll develop can be even more annoying).

Re:Outstanding!!

[Slowleggs]

"There is, AFAIK, no relationship between ADHD or ADD and being able to hear the line noise. Whether or not you ARE able to hear it would solely depend on your hearing."

True, an ADD / ADHD's ears are just as normal as everyone else's.

However, the human brain suppresses redundant noise (e.g. heartbeat) so that our consciousness may focus on the important stuff. This may be directly related to why ADD people have attention problems (I guess, I am not a doctor).

Re:Outstanding!!

[Hektor_Troy]

Well, I don't know if I have ADHD or ADD or something else, but I can hear if a monitor/tv is "bad" or what you want to call it.

Examples:
I have an old Nokia 17" monitor, that can do 1280x1024@85Hz at the max. However, the guy I got it from always ran it at 1280x960@75Hz, because higher res/freq gave him headaches. I certainly found out why, as it gave a high pitched whine when it went above that. Seriously high pitched.

A friend of mine used to run his monitor at 16x12@90Hz, because he could. This was within range of the monitors ability, but I could always hear the whine. Then when he wasn't looking, I set it to 85hz, the whine dissapeared and he didn't notice. A week later or so he told me, that out of the blue, the constant headache he had, that the doctor could find no cause of, had dissapeared. I told him what I'd done, thinking it might be that. He didn't believe me and put it back to 90Hz. A few days later he said he'd turned it back down to 85Hz, because the headache came back, and it dissapeared and hasn't come back after he set it to 85Hz.

My mom gets a headache at the local super store, when she's at the electronics department, and I certainly understand this, as I can't go anywhere near it, as I can hear the whine 50 feet from the television stand.

My friends parrents bought a new television that their cat didn't want to lie on. They didn't really know why, thinking maybe it didn't smell like home anymore. No. High pitched whine again.

I have no idea wether it's the line scan, bad electronic components or whatever, but I can tell you, if your monitor/television is likely to give you a headache ...

come on...

[fjordboy]

The flashy colors make power supplies better - period.

The purpose of a power supply is not to be quiet - if that was the purpose I'd just make one that didn't work - the purpose is to provide electricity to the components in a computer. Duh.

Re:come on...

[jointm1k]

It is not the purpose of a PSU to be anoyingly loud either. The quieter, the better.

HA!

[pbranes]

Their power supplies are really quiet too after a good slashdotting!

Re:HA!

[mh_tang]

SilenX 400w 14 dBA PSU
Date : Sunday, January 25, 2004
Author : SnowPunk98
Vendor : SilenX

Introduction
I have reviewed a lot of power supplies over the years here at OCModShop and now I look at the SilenX 400w. This power supply claims to be the quietest active cooled power supplies on the market. I have done reviews on many other silent power supplies from many other companies. Some have been as quiet and they boasted to be and others were much louder than they should have been. This power supply features Over Voltage Protection, Over Power Protection, and Short Circuit Protection. All of these features will ensure that the power to your system is stable and fixed. I don't like loud systems at all, before I got this power supply I was using the True Silent 450w PSU I previously reviewed because it was the quietest I have encountered so far. I will be using the True Silent power supply to compare this SilenX one to see which is quieter.

The power supply does not come boxed, rather it comes in a plastic bag with the power cord supplied. The power supply was shipped via USPS Priority Mail and was in one of their boxes. The power supply was protected well during shipping with packing material and came undamaged. I think that SilenX should really look into getting a box for their power supply, for many different reasons.

The power supply doesn't boast any flashy designs or cool colors however that is not the purpose of this power supply. Silence is what the main goal of the unit is and there are tons of features to help achieve that. It would be nice if there was something extra as far as looks is concerned with this power supply if it did not raise the price.

The back of the power supply has an on/off switch, 110/220v toggle, and power connector. The 80mm fan that is used as an exhaust has a unique blade design and hybrid immersion bearings to lower the noise level. Instead of the traditional metal screws the fan is held in place by a silicone composite fan vibration dampening system. The fan on a power supply is what makes the noise so the quieter the fan the quieter the it will be.

Because this power supply is designed to be silent there is only one fan so there needs to be some decent heatsinking inside of the unit to keep it cool. One thing I noticed is that the screws holding the cover in place had Loctite or some similar product on them to keep them from vibrating. Small details like this show that the manufacturer has really taken time to make the best possible product. After getting the cover off I found that there was a impressive amount of heatsinks inside. You can also see on top of one of the heatsinks that there is a thermal probe which controls the fans RPM.

This SilenX 400w has pretty standard connections including: 6 Molex, 1 berg, 1 Auxillary, 1 12v, and 1 ATX. None of the cables have sleeving or any other form of cable management which would have been nice to see but is alright none the less. The cables also don't look to be too long which is the case of many other power supplies.

Testing
I installed this SilenX 400w power supply to my normal test bed which is the above hardware. As I suspected the cables are a good length and not too long which is nice. To test the noise level of this power supply I bridged one of the black wires with the green one on the 20 pin connector so I could run it without anything else. After comparing the two power supplies I found that the SilenX 400w was much quieter than the True Silent 450w. I installed the power supply to my computer and hooked everything up. I also took out the temporary video card that I have been using and replaced it with a XFX GeForce FX5700 Ultra that will soon be reviewed. The cables are a not too long but were long enough with some slack to reach down to the Molex on the video card.

# Test Bed: Albatron K8X800 Pro II (review to come)
# AMD Athlon64 3200+ (review to come)
# 60GB Seagate Barracuda IV HDD
# 1024MB PC3200 Corsair TwinX
# XFX GeForceFX 5700 Ultra

Other sources of noise

[Some guy named Chris]

Seems to me the power supply is but one aspect of the war on noise.

You've got hard drives spinning and cpus cooling.

Still, a step in the right direction.

Re:Other sources of noise

[hageshii]

You've got hard drives spinning

after buying a quiet psu (antec tru-power) and the zalman flower cpu cooler, my system quieted down a lot. but the hard disks still annoyed me. so i just moved the hard disk into my server in the closet (on its own IDE channel) and mount root over NFSv3. performance is comperable to having the disk local, even over a standard 100Mbps ethernet link (through a $30 switch). now i can watch movies without straining to hear dialog.

You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us just can't sleep without the soothing turbine noise of a plethora of fans. Hope these things don't catch on, I'll be hooked on Ny-Quil within a week...

Re:You know...

[sadomikeyism]

NOW how am I going to be able to tell whether my PC is in sleep mode, had a power failure, or is just in a pre-blue screen of death mode, and hasn't got even the nads to display a blue screen?

I want lots of pretty LEDs, like you used to see on 50's B SF movie computers...

"Danger, Will Robinson..."

it must be quiet

[Chuck Bucket]

I've never _heard_ of this power supply! (get it?)

CB

slashdottted already...

[Anonymous Coward]

so here's another review of it, on a different site...

Quiet PCs

[Ianoo]

I have recently become totally fed up with the high pitched whine my main work machine made, so I decided it was about time to do something about it. I bought a Zalman silent PSU, a Zalman flower CPU cooler, two Zalman silent case fans and a Zalman heatpipe graphics card cooler. When they say silent, they aren't totally silent (except for the heatpipe graphics card cooler which has no fan), but they're pretty damned quiet.

My PC is transformed, the loud, obtrusive, high pitched whine has now been reduced to a quiet, low pitched rumbling. I struggle to hear it when I'm 10 feet away, and even when sitting by it and working it's so much quieter it's much more enjoyable to use. Music is also a much nicer experience without the fan noise. I've even found that my CPU runs cooler with the Zalman heatsink than it did with the medium priced heatsink I had in there before.

Re:Quiet PCs

[dFaust]

Ahanix DOES NOT MAKE SilenX PSUs!!!!!!!!!! This important, please mod this up!!!! See www.silenx.com to see what I'm talking about.... Ahanix is basically a rip off company (you'll notice their homepage is even a rip off of Samsung's).

Also, while Zalman PSUs may be quiet, they're not on the same level as the SilenX. The parent article notes that the SilenX is "much quiter" than a PSU which he reviewed as being "much quieter" than the Zalman. So the SilenX is essentially "much, much quieter" than the Zalman :) Seriously though, Zalman's specs rate their 400W PSU at 20-30db. SilenX's is rated at ~11.5-14db. If you're going for true silence, 30db compared to 14db will make a huge difference.

Re:Quiet PCs

[jsoffron]

I actually recently bought a computer that has this power supply, and the zalman heatsink, and a silentmaxx case (it's soundproofed) for a home audio studio. It does make a very big difference for someone like me who records in the same room their computer's in (no control room...), but for anyone else I can't see the benefits being too great. It quiets your system down enough that the hard drive being accessed is your biggest problem, but really, unless you get rid of that problem, it doesn't really matter that much...sound is sound, and stopping it from leaking in on a good mic (I like the akg c414 btlII, for instance) is virtually impossible. These components *do* let you make it possible to drown out computer noise through cumulative recording (i.e. the drums being loud will cover the mic noise on your acoustic guitar track), and if you can get far enough away and position your mic correctly, you can almost eliminate it. But for anyone who's not doing home audio, I really doubt it would be worth it. My old computer had 2 *loud* fans in it, so I kind of feel like I overreacted in going so far to get this computer to be silent. And besides, if I didn't have a utilitarian need for silence I'd try and find something with a laser show in it. You can't go wrong with laser shows. You *can* go blind with laser shows, but at least even then everyone else can see how cool you are.

Re: Quiet PCs

[X_Bones]

MOD PARENT UP

-Joe Blow
Marketing Division
Zalman Inc.

(hehe)

So what?

[metalhed77]

I just bought a ThermalTake Pure Power with 420 watts and its impossible to hear (probably because I use nowhere near 420 watts so the fans never throttle up). These have been around for ages.

Sweet...

[Mysticalfruit]

Though I wonder if any of us would really notice. Of all the fans in my machine (7), the power supply is the least noisy of them all.

I'd rather they spend their time researching quieter case and CPU fans.

Here's a sound clip for the power supply:

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:Here's a sound clip for the power supply:

[Soko]

I can't see anything. I must be deaf. ;^)

Soko

Think of the children

[b00m3rang]

The power supply does not come boxed, rather it comes in a plastic bag with the power cord supplied.[...snip] The power supply was protected well during shipping with packing material and came undamaged. I think that SilenX should really look into getting a box for their power supply, for many different reasons.

So, the unit showed up well packaged, undamaged, and in a bag instead of a box. What's the problem? Not enough useless packaging to end up in landfills? Yeah, that'll make your computer perform better. It'll help keep the price down, too.

It's this very attitude that'll kill us all.

Apple anyone?

[niko9]

Disclaimer: I have never and currently do not own a mac.

I happen to notice that the G5 (when I saw it at Best Buy) had the power supply at the bottom of the case spread along the length. I bet you it uses the bottom of the aluminum case as some sort of heatsing, obviating the need for one more case fan.

In my opinion, the ATX power supply should go out the window. There's no reason to be cramming 500 watt power supplies in such a cramped box.

Several ideas:

Borrow from Apple, make the power supply longger and use the case as a heatsink. Spread the heat out.

Female molex connector jacks. Right now you have a whole bunch of wires in the anticipation that everyone has a RAID array, 2 cdroms, and video card that needs auxially power. The unused connectors have to be rubberbanded and bunched somewhere.

Gives us jacks on the PS unit so that you ony have the minimum amount of wires needed in a case.

By the way, Antec is soone releasing a tottaly silent psu. No fans whatsoever, just big aluminum heatsinks on all sides, rated at 350 watts for now. The Inquirer had a photo from CES.

--

Re:Apple anyone?

[ubertemp]

The ATX power supply standard has nothing to do with the size of the power supply.

The ATX, and more common ATX12V and EPS12V, refers to the type of connectors supplied as well as a few power requirements that don't concern most home users.

If you are looking for a small 400W ATX12V supply look at either Etasis or a company called SPI, which goes by the name of Sparkle or Zippy at your local Fry's.

Re:Apple anyone?

[Golias]

Female molex connector jacks. Right now you have a whole bunch of wires in the anticipation that everyone has a RAID array, 2 cdroms, and video card that needs auxially power. The unused connectors have to be rubberbanded and bunched somewhere.

If you are 100% positive that you will neither use all that stuff, nor re-sell the PC before it's obsolete, a pair of horizontal wire clippers can provide a very simple solution to your problem. :)

Re:Apple anyone?

[WoodstockJeff]

In my opinion, the ATX power supply should go out the window. There's no reason to be cramming 500 watt power supplies in such a cramped box.

When you're designing a proprietary computer, you can do whatever you damn well please with the power supply. In the early days, Dell and Gateway did exactly that for their desktops... and EVERYONE does for their laptops.

The problem comes when they fail - and they will! - and you're up against a deadline. On more than one occasion I've had to pull hard drives out of such machines and plug them into something else to retrieve data that was needed NOW, and the proprietary replacement wouldn't arrive for a few days...

We are "stuck" with the AT power supply form factor because you can always run out and buy a replacement when it burns up, without waiting for the manufacturer (assuming they're still in business) to get back from a surfing break to take your order.

You want one of these then...

[Andy Davies]

http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/

costs $99

[DanThe1Man]

If you were wondering how much it is and where to order it, go here.

Question with out answer...

[evilnissan]

If a computer is turned on in the forest, and no one is there to hear it,,, does it make a sound.??

Or

If the computer that isturned on in the forest crashes, will the squarles cuss out Windows and the Bears mawl on Bill Gates???

Re:Big deal

[aonifer]

My power supply easily outclasses my case fans, cpu fan, and hard drive put together. Of course, that's because all of my fans are undervolted Panaflo L1As and my hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda IV mounted with silicone washers. That said, even my power supply is inaudible if there is any significant background noise in the room. Of course, I"m still thinking of replacing the power supply fan with an Evercool. The quest for silence starts to make one a bit obsessive.

What's all the fuzz about

[Pidder]

A 14 db "silent" PSU is nothing new. There are fan-less PSUs available on the market now if silence is what you want.

Re:Silent? 3 days until...

[Golias]

Meanwhile somebody over at Ars Technica will brag about how he stepped it up to 412.5W, but needed a jet turbine cooling system to prevent it from melting the bezels on his PC case.

Re:Silence is overrated.

[crabpeople]

"maybe it's like those people who drive obnoxious SUVs.. overcompensation."

your analogy is a bit flawed. people who drives SUV's have small penises. If you actually have a powerhouse machine (quad xeon i think would count) then it is very fitting for it to sound like it.

however if you had say a single processor celeron that had a 6x120mm fan array which swallowed passing rodents whole, then i would be forced to redefine you.

Or CD/DVD drives

[zoney_ie]

Gnarg - why are optical drives louder than ever now! It would be nice to have a review of the quietest DVD drives! MUCH more annoying than PSU noise. Especially the sporadic nature of it.

Silent PCs

[1HandClapping]

last year I spent four months researching quiet PCs. The Best Site for Silent PC Info and Review of the SilenX

Typically the most irritating noises in order are

1) CPU Fan

2) PSU Fan

3) Case Fans

4) HDD

I have a Zalman pure copper Flower on my CPU with only one 12cm fan ducted near it. (No CPU fan). With my HDD decoupled it was silent (i.e. I could not hear it at 2 AM from 1 meter) during normal operation and barely audible when seek/writing.

To overclockers 28dB may seem quiet, but whispers are about 24dB. I personally find it dificult to work with someone whispering 1 meter away. About every 3 dB doubles the acoustic energy. (e.g. if one fan is 20dB, then two of the same fans would be about 23dB) I guestimate my system at about 22 dB.

Re:Silent PCs

[0x0d0a]

I personally find it dificult to work with someone whispering 1 meter away.

Agreed, and I like quiet PCs a lot as well -- but keep in mind that it's a lot easier to learn to filter out white noise than whispering.

I *do* have to say that people that get a fancy sound system and then have a regular PC have got to be crazy -- nobody can hear "external vs internal DAC" differences as more significant than the fans in the PC.

What a lame article

[stratjakt]

does even Toms Hardware waste time reviewing power supplies?

Who cares. Its a power supply with some "quiet" fans in it. Stick a quiet fan in any power supply for 5 bucks and you have the same product.

Now post some articles on ram coolers or glowing mouse pads.

Que?

[nihkee]

What, is this Tom's Hardware or something?

SilentX compared to competition

[EconolineCrush]

Tech Report compares the SilenX with four of its competitors here.

Not impressed. NorthQ 500W 12db here

[julie-h]

I am not impressed. have a look at this NorthQ 400W 12dB or this NorthQ 500W 12dB PSU.

Weight

[SuperBanana]

My PC is transformed, the loud, obtrusive, high pitched whine has now been reduced to a quiet, low pitched rumbling.

And the best part is, that low frequency vibration will help the motherboard crack even faster since the Zalman coolers all cheerfully ignore the max weight limits set by motherboard companies. They have supposedly caused a few mobo deaths.

Tip- a)make sure all the standoffs are installed properly and the mobo is screwed down. b)if you move the machine, consider taking the CPU heatsink off FIRST, because if you bounce it around, the heft of the heatsink could flex the motherboard a little too much.

Re:Weight

[Ianoo]

The Aluminium ones are actually less than the 450g maximum rated for P4 coolers. Admittedly the Copper one is over 800g, but if you go for the Alu one you shouldn't expect the motherboard to crack.

Slashdot Effect

[wjames]

I bet CmdrTaco had some grudge aginst the site and just wanted to see it get slashdoted.

Silent PC Review

[LordKronos]

Silent PC Review is a good site for finding out about quiet components. According to their ratings on power supplies, there are actually a few 400 watt PSU's that they ranked better than this one:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.php?op =modlo ad&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid= 28&page=2

If it has a fan, it is not silent.

[JonMartin]

The authoritative resource for silent PCs is The Silent PC. On there you will find a link to fanless PSUs. Like the proSilence fanless from silentmaxx.

These things are neat. No fan, just a big-ass heatsink sticking out the back of your case. But remember that without the airflow from the PSU you will need a fan for your case (or a special self-cooling case).

My free solution to having a quiet power supply

[nic1m]

If you have a system that doesn't load your supply too heavily I highly recommend what I've done to mine.

System specs: I have a nice Enermax Whisper 350 Watt supply. Very large full tower case. Celeron 1.2 @ 1.3 GHz CPU. Only one hard drive and no fancy 3D graphics card.

I removed the two fans from the supply, as well as the top cover. I then mounted the supply on the back of my case outside. It is oriented so that the supply's heat sinks get as much convective cooling as possible.
This works very well indeed. The supply doesn't get too warm. It's totally silent since there are no fans. I think it would be possible to do this with a somewhat more powerful system without the supply needing active cooling. Worst case you could mount a Panaflo 80 mm fan slowed down with some resistors to the supply to cool it.

Drawbacks:
- you have to watch out where you put your fingers so you don't electrocute yourself. The paranoid may want to cover the supply with some sort of mesh.
- if your supply has short power cables you might need extensions.
- you won't have the supply's fan(s) drawing air through your case, so you may need to add a case fan. Instead I recommend using the CPU fan for that purpose by attaching a duct to it. In my case the duct goes to the large hole at the back of the case where the supply used to be.

Re:Cost?

[Zebedeu]

I have a friend who just did this to his pc.
He got a noise blocker cooler for his cpu and a silent fan for his case. Both had manual control of the fan speed.
At low to medium speed we were strugling to hear the fans, but as you got to top speed, they'd get loud as hell.
Anyway, the fans at medium speed managed to cool the cpu to acceptable levels, so it was ok.

After that we realized just how loud the graphics card was, so we went back to the store and got the zalman passive heatsink. Boy did that work wonders.
Now you can't almost hear his pc running, even without changing the PSU, which was a major change for an athlon 2000+ setup that sounded like a turbine.

He burned around 80 EUR on this little scheme, which is why I'm puting off doing it myself. I'm saving for a new graphics card.

Decisions, decisions...

Re:Cost?

[J3M]

I know I'm not the OP, but I just built a new PC last week using Zalman stuff, so I can answer some of it. I bought two Zalman 80mm Quiet Mode fans for $9.98 and the Zalman Copper - Aluminum CPU Cooler for $35.99. The CPU fan is very quiet, and the 80mm fans are quiet at around the 1700 - 1900 rpm range (but loud at 3000 rpm). The quiet mode the 80mm fans speak of is simply an adapter with a resistor to drop the current. I didn't even install it, rather I let the BIOS control the fan speed. I can't speak of the Zalman PSU since I went with Antec (which is rather loud, but pretty).

dB On A Stereo Different Than dB For Sound

[DonnarsHmr]

Your stereo achieves maximum volume at OdB because at that setting there is 0dB of attentuation applied to the signal before it gets to the gain stage(s). The numbers on a stereo, or mixing board (well, the numbers below unity at least) really ought to be specified at -XdB not XdB. So when set to 15dB, your stereo is attenuating the signal by 15dB before passing it to the gain stage.

Sound Pressure Levels (SPL), on the other hand are the measured SPL compared to a reference level defined to be 0dB. 0dB is defined to the the standardized lower limit of human hearing under ideal conditions. Interestingly, for humans with no hearing loss, this lower threshold is thermally limited. In other words, if your hearing isn't damaged and there are no other sounds, you can hear the temperature of the room. At 0dB, your eardrum is deflecting by about the diameter of a Hydrogen atom. Another fun fact to know and tell: the system of small bones that convey the vibration from the ear drum to the inner ear function as a hydraulic system with a 7000:1 ratio, which is almost exactly the accoustic impedance mismatch between air and the fluid in your inner ear. For an intersting discussion of human hearing, read the first few chapters of Master Handbook of Acoustics

14dBa not credible

[jmichaelg]

The reviewer doesn't measure the actual sound level that the psu generate under load. Instead, he takes the manufacturer's word for it that it's 14 dBa.

Mike Chin at www.silentpcreview.com writes a more credible review of a psu that has a 120 mm fan and it's cranking 22 dBa when the psu is drawing 215 watts. I find it very hard to believe that an 80 mm fan can move enough air to cool a loaded 300+ Watt psu while only generating 14dBa of noise.

Another solution

[Jon Abbott]

Rather than use these new fangled pseudo-silent power supplies, we could all revert to systems that don't require fans on the CPU and power supply. I still have a Pentium Pro 180 MHz system that runs fanless and doesn't overheat. The G4 Cube, IIRC, was also entirely sans fans by design. I remember old 286 and some 386 CPUs would run cool to the touch. Surely, there is a better way! :^)

Hearing TV Whine

[mlanett]

Being able to hear the TV is just a matter of having good (not alien, just good) hearing.

The scanline transducer operates 525 times per refresh, 30 times a second: 15.750khz. This is within the range of human hearing, so if a transducer is of poor quality, you can hear it.

My guess is that many people just don't pay attention to it, even though they can hear it.

However lots of people who grew up listening to Walkmans and other devices can't hear it, because they've destroyed their high-range hearing.

Re:Outstanding!! getting WAY OT

[beanlover]

I can hear TVs and monitors too.

When I was a kid we had a console tv that was on it's last legs. It took forever to turn on...but I was able to get it to turn on without much problem because of my hearing. I would hit the power button and hear the tv but it wouldn't be "on." Then I would hit the power button again and listen to the sound until it was almost gone and then hit the power button again and viola! it was on like it should be.

I used to think everyone could hear that stuff too...and although I have never been diagnosed with AD* I am easily distracted. :)

My mother in law has an HP computer (Fairly new) and every once in a while, usually when surfing the net with the annoying sounds of IE enabled, the on-board sound would make the speakers emit an annoying high-pitched frequency that I could hear from other rooms without much problem. She would be sitting right in front of the monitor, reading a page, and not hear it. I even asked, "Can't you hear that??!?" because it was so loud to me I almost couldn't stand it. Had to make another sound happen on the computer to make it stop.

I once had a roommate in college that claimed to have "dog ears" because he couldn't ignore background noises (and he didn't have a hearing aid either). I had an old XT 8088 and I had to decompress .jpg to .gif just so I could look at the pictures (you know...of landscapes and such!) It had one of those full-height harddrives (either 20 or 40 megs) that ANYONE could hear from anywhere, but the decompression was so slow that it would only hit the drive once every 40 - 50 seconds for a brief moment. I would do this at night so it would be done in the morning...and it would never fail...right before I would be completely asleep he would ask me to turn the computer off because the HD was keeping him awake!

Oh well...enough about me...:)

Nexus

[ZeLonewolf]

I recently bought a silent Nexus power supply. Ran me $70. It's silent, looks very cool, and to boot the fan actually blows across the CPU. The back of the PS (the part when you put the plug into) is a mesh instead of solid metal, so the airflow is quite effective.

YMMV